Sports death--an Internal Medicine problem?

Herz
Stefan Sack

Abstract

Sports means fitness and endurance, regeneration and balance, game and fun. Lack of physical exercise is one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. Terrifying and not conclusive in the public's mind are events of sudden death, in particular if those are of nontraumatic cause and thus of cardiovascular origin. Organic pathologic examination revealed that a higher proportion of males are affected by sports death. Only 7-9% of those events are related to women, although the percentage of active women among sports people accounts for nearly 50%. The relative risk increases with age and intensity of endurance. For people who are untrained or not used to train, the risk of sudden death is potentially higher. In athletes > 35 years of age, coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common cause (85%) of sudden death. In the group < 35 years, CAD and acute myocarditis are the predominant causes of sudden death, but also hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), disorders of the conducting system, and Marfan's syndrome. Additional risk factors like acute infections and misuse of doping drugs require the care of a specialist in internal medicine and/or cardiology on top of th...Continue Reading

Citations

Jul 4, 2009·Herz·Hubert SeggewissAngelos Rigopoulos
Aug 2, 2008·Internal Medicine·Martina MontagnanaGian Cesare Guidi

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Cardiomyopathy

Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle, that can lead to muscular or electrical dysfunction of the heart. It is often an irreversible disease that is associated with a poor prognosis. There are different causes and classifications of cardiomyopathies. Here are the latest discoveries pertaining to this disease.

Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia is a congenital cardiomyopathy that is characterized by infiltration of adipose and fibrous tissue into the right ventricle wall and loss of myocardial cells. Primary injuries usually are at the free wall of the right ventricular and right atria resulting in ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmias. Discover the latest research on arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia here.